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Staab relishing development role

(FIFA.com) Friday 31 August 2007

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Until recently, women and football would not have been heard in
the same sentence in Pakistan. Times are changing though, and the
world's sixth most densely populated country now has a
women's team currently looking forward to playing its first
international match. Unbelievable yet true, and much of it is down
to the efforts of one woman: Monika Staab. The Pakistan Football
Association has been very active in the past two years, working
hard and laying the groundwork for outside assistance, which the
country is now ready for.

The 48-year-old is held up as a pioneer and a driving force
behind the sport she loves back in her native Germany. Born in
Frankfurt, she was influential behind turning local outfit SG
Praunheim into FFC Frankfurt and helping them to become the Bayern
Munich of German women's football, working as coach and
president and steering the team to domestic and international
glory. Players such as Birgit Prinz, Steffi Jones and Renate Lingor
are just three of the big names whom Staab has helped along the
route to becoming European and world champions.

In December 2006, the widely respected Staab left the German
title-holders looking for new challenges, and she soon found them.
She is currently working for FIFA as a Women's Football
Specialist, advising on development projects around the world,
particularly in Arab and Asian countries. Since the beginning of
the year, Staab has been in Asia, helping women's football get
off the ground across the region. "I see myself as a sporting
missionary and I have to say that this new role is really
fulfilling," she enthused in an exclusive interview with
FIFA.com.

Real development work around the worldStaab was recently in Bahrain for five months to set up a
women's football team. The project was a great success, with a
number of internationals being played and the team being given
provisional status in the FIFA world rankings. "I'll keep
on going back there to see how everything is coming on. I'll
keep an eye on all of the projects I'm involved in,"
explained Staab, who never rests on her laurels, however well a
project has gone.

Her latest trip was for six weeks to Pakistan, where she ran
four training camps in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Quetta, with
300 young women taking part. "I would never have thought that
there would be so many participants," said Staab with a smile.
"It was amazing and just great to see so many women that
enthusiastic about the sport. This in a country where so many
cultural barriers exist that you can't simply ignore
them."

'About more than results'The culmination of the four training camps was a
championship, after which Staab selected a 25-strong squad for the
national team. "Selections like this are obviously different
from the ones we used to have at FFC Frankfurt," she
explained. "The players wear long trousers and two of them
also had headscarves. But when you think that at the final
tournament there were 4,000 spectators, 99 per cent of them men who
all happily accepted the idea of women's football, then you can
see that what we achieved was about more than just match results.
Four thousand spectators, 20 journalists and ten teams of reporters
filming - I never had that in Frankfurt!"

It is clear to see that Staab is totally committed to her new
role. "It's such a great feeling to see that with
FIFA's help and their authority in this project as the
governing body of world football, real development work can be
carried out," she concludes. "When you see that you can
give these girls so much, see the smiles and the sparkle in their
eyes, the passion and the commitment, and then when they thank you
for doing this, it is absolutely staggering."